The People Behind
by panuru4u
Summary: A short little look into a less than popular character.


Authors' NOTE: The characters of Harry Potter expressly belong to JKR. This story was written without a beta, and on a sudden urge to write. Thanks for reading if you do.  
  
The People behind:  
  
"The name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy. I'm from a pureblood family."  
  
Twelve years ago I heard those words for the first time. I was three years old at the time, and was playing knights with butter knife. But, the memory is there-it is as fresh in my mind as it has always been. The pride in his surname and family would be something that I will always associate with him, no matter how far he is fated to fall. After all, he is a Malfoy.  
  
I remember many things about that first encounter, but I would rarely see him again over the next four years. He was a pale, sickly child, and I was.well, I was overweight. But, his eyes, they were something different. They possessed in quantities something that I could never even hope to have. Determination. Those silvery irises would never sway from the path set forth before them, nor would they look back in regret, even if it was the path of a Malfoy.  
  
Eight years ago, we truly became the trio. Despite all of father's dealings with Mr. Malfoy in the family parlor, Draco rarely came along, preferring the company of his mother. But that day, on that frosty November evening, we became brothers.  
  
Wolves have always frightened Draco. It was the manifestation of fear to his adolescent mind-especially if they were black. His father, Malfoy Sr. knew this. So in an effort to 'toughen the boy up,' he invited us to come along on a little hunting trip. On that day, we trekked our way through the forest. But, in his hurry to track down the fowl he was hunting, we were 'accidentally' left behind. It's laughable to think that it was an accident, now.  
  
I still bear the scar I received that day-an elongated and raggedy circle across my thigh. Vincent has his, too, across his stomach. Draco has one that stretches from his right shoulder to his left hip across his back. We were armed with little bows, things the house elves used to kill our evening roast. And we were alone in the woods. We were nine years old, and we had been abandoned in the woods. It was odd, I've never seen Draco act the way he did that day ever since. He was afraid that he had been abandoned; that he was too weak to be a Malfoy. He had changed from the Malfoy that I had met only four years before. The spark of determination had all but died out. It was then that the wolves attacked us. Armed with only a pitiful bow and a handful of arrows, Vincent and I clumsily took aim at the wolves. We fired, but the feeble bow only broke in our hands. Draco had been muttering something under his breath as he rocked backed on forth on the log that we taken refuge behind. I tried pulling him down, when he suddenly screamed, "I AM A MALFOY!!!" and stood his at his full height of 122 cm as the wolves charged. And I was inspired by the determination that had returned to his eyes. And we stood up with him, proud to be there with him as he faced his fear. We were subsequently beaten and almost eaten soundly. If not for Malfoy Sr. I have no doubt that we would have died that day. What came next surprised me even more that the silvery irises of Draco. He was slapped squarely across the face.  
  
The look of shock was apparent on his face. He was beaten before our very eyes, and we stared in horror as Malfoy Sr. brandished his wand and cracked it like a whip across his back. The scar on his back comes from a particularly deep lash. "YOU ARE WEAK!!! YOU ARE WEAK, YOU SNIVELING LITTLE BASTARD!!! ARE YOU A MALFOY OR NOT?!" It continued for well over an hour, and unable to do anything, we watched Draco's tortured silent scream. Despite the pain, he was as quiet as is Silencio had been cast on him. It was then, that I knew that I would follow him until the ends of our entwined fate. Come what may, we would be the people behind him as he approached his fate as a Malfoy-A refuge of darkness. 


End file.
